George Galloway, writing, of course, from Berlin, says: "As the smoke clears from the battlefield of the 34-day war in Lebanon, it would be a mistake to count the cost only in fallen masonry and fresh graves." In other words, who gives a monkeys how many people were killed, so long as the "resistance" triumphs. The classic Leninist ends justifies means when History is on your side. What an evil man.

George also has the inside track on Hassan Nasrallah's prayers. "Nasrallah thanked God that the [Israeli] attack came when the resistance movement was prepared." Who cares about Lebanese deaths, so long as it was a good war.

One of my favourite things about Gorgeous George is his wonderful way with metaphor and simile. How about this: "The myth of invincibility is a souffle that cannot rise twice." (For more examples, see here.)

Final, truly unbelievable words: "If there is no settlement there can only be war, war and more war, until one day it is Tel Aviv which is on fire and the Israeli leaders' intransigence brings the whole state down on their heads... There is still time to choose peace. But make no mistake, with the victory of Hizbullah, a terrible beauty is born."

Today's Guardian hosts George Galloway on Hezbollah's 'victory': the usual brown-nosing of clerical fascists made even worse by his quoting from Yeats' Easter 1916, 'A terrible beauty is born.' More appropriate would be this from, irony of ironies, Remorse For Intemperate Speech, 'Great hatred, little room,/Maimed us at the start.'

Better still, this, from The Second Coming, 'The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.' The abuse of lines from the greatest poet of the twentieth century by a fourth-rate demagogue ---a galling start to anyone's day.

If I had more time, I'd write a big juicy post about the hubris and megalomania of Tommy Sheridan, and about the fact that they Socialist Workers Party are prepared to join him in his pathetic adventures, and happy to wreck the Scottish Socialist Party, the most successful left party in the British Isles for decades, in doing so. The SWP never fell for Uncle Joe, but these days they seem to bend over at the fluttering of an eyelid from any would-be Stalin with a big enough ego (George Galloway, Hugo Chavez, Sheikh Nasrullah...)

Well, I'm back again. Survived the hell of Heathrow on the 10th August... and the 12th August. Returned from America - and found that American airport security is completely lax- slacker than British airport security was before August 10! You could get away with pretty much anything, as long as you don't carry it in your shoes. So much for bellicose American wingnuts' claims that the US is leading the war on global terror - and so much for idiot American liberals' claims that the war on terror is a war on personal liberty.

Friday, August 11, 2006

I was meant to fly across the Atlantic with Amercan Airlines yesterday, but my flight was cancelled. If I manage overcome my terror and re-arrange a flight, I won't be blogging for a while. If I fail, you'll be hearing a lot from me about my experience, my rage at the "Islamic fascists", and even my brief moment of anti-americanism at the airport!

As I wrote yesterday, the anti-war movement in the UK seems to me to be characterised by a very one-sided position: it is not anti-war, but anti-Israel, and in support of Hezbollah's (and Hamas') war on Israel. This does not reflect the much broader anti-war sentiment across the UK, which is anti-war period, as they say, not anti-war.

It suits the movement's mis-leaders to keep the fact out public attention that many Israelis are against their country's attacks on Lebanon - just as it suits the supporters of the Olmert position. Thus Daniel in several recent posts has been highlighting the anti-war movement in Israel, indeed making the point that it is perfectly possible to be anti-war and Zionist. (On that issue, see Yossi Beilin on the test of the Zionist left)

On similar lines, Arieh sent me this JPost article, about the lack of publicity given to mass anti-war events in Israel.

I want an immediate end to the war in the Middle East. I want a ceasefire now. But I did not even consider going to the march at the weekend, because I knew that the majority of people there (at least the more vocal and visible ones) would actually want victory for the side in the war that started it with unprovoked attacks on civilian targets.

It seems the speakers weren't too extreme in comparison to some of the events, but the placards that filled the crowd - particularly those of inminds and the BMI (that's the British Muslim Initiative, a co-organiser, not British Midland airlines) - were pretty horrible.

Arrests are routinely videotaped. That is why, on one of those American TV cop-shows, viewers saw police tape of George Jones being stopped and arrested for drunk driving. Jones is disgusting, ugly, belligerant. And yet this tape wound up on the public air.

I'm not saying it's necessarily a good thing that this happens. In the case of George Jones, I don't agree that the public needs to see the pathetic side of this great artist. It does nothing but demean him in a moment of degradation.

But I do wonder why Mel Gibson's arrest-tape will be supressed. I can think of one good reason that has nothing to with "special treatment." And that is, the tape, if released, will ultimately wind up on the Internet, widely linked to, emailed to millions, available on youtube.com ... a horrible prospect. Horrible because of what Mel Gibson is saying on it. I do not think it would be good for public order, or public decency, to send this tape out on an irreversible trajectory into the digital universe.

I thought the Chief Rabbi was misguided when he used the above phrase. But that's what we're seeing now, thanks to the conflict in the Middle East. ENGAGE documents swastikas in Rome, offensive graffiti in Glasgow, defaced memorials in Brussels, and violence in the Antipodes.

1. Qana draws a line between good and bad advocacy of Israel. I hope (I've been a good advocate - see here.)

2. MP3 players and the privatization of public spaces describes the purchase of an IPod Nano, and bigs up someone not very politically correct in our corner of the so-called "decent" left: Gilad Atzmon. I've attacked Atzmon several times on this blog (you can google the links if you have energy), but I have to agree musiK is a great album, a fwe tracks of which are on my IPod and ease the pain of the already privatized public spaces I move thru on my Sarf London journey to work. (And Will says it's OK to be this incorrect.)

It's not known exactly how much Channel 4 viewers' money ended up going to them; estimates at the time varied from £30,000 to £100,000. As for Galloway's fee itself, rumoured to be around £60,000, that was to be given to Respect to fund a couple of new staff members, or so Gorgeous said. No such donation was recorded by the Electoral Commission in the first quarter of the year; no doubt the cash will show up in the second quarter's figures. After all, Gorgeous wouldn't lose charity cash... would he?

The bad thing about this controversy is not only that one side is barking up the wrong tree, but also that the media have followed the barking of certain voices to the exclusion of other voices in this community. I'm not saying that the troublemakers are purely created by the media. Obviously, and regrettably, Abdus Salique, who threatened to burn the book at a protest, is real enough, as are others who want to suppress the film. But these are not the only voices worth listening to as representatives of the community. Journalists and commentators have to think again about why we choose whom we do to represent a community.

Pola Uddin, the only Bengali woman in the House of Lords, was indignant when I asked her why we weren't hearing more women's voices in this debate: "Our voices aren't sought! The media are not interested in in us."

3. One thing I want to add, in case my posts on this are being read gleefully by those who like to hate Muslims, is that the protesters are very, very different people from those who burnt Satanic Verses. The anti-Monica Ali bigots are secular Bangladeshis, people who often protest against political Islam and Jamaati activity, the good guys in the war on terror.

They are driven by a different version of identitarianism: nationalism, or perhaps more strictly "infra-nationalism". They are Sylheti nationalists, and Sylheti nationalism is all about resentment against Dhaka people. In other words, this is not the clash of civilisations, but the narcissism of minor differences.